This invention relates to bicycles or velocipedes.
The standard form of bicycle has been in use for a considerable number of years and is widely accepted. This bicycle comprises a steerable front wheel, a driven rear wheel, a rigid frame on which these wheels are rotatably mounted, a handle bar used to steer the bicycle and a seat mounted on the frame. Although these bicycles are generally acceptable, they do suffer from the limitation that they are only driven by the use of leg muscles while the rider's hands and arms are only used to steer the bicycle and as a means for balance. Although there have been proposals in the past for providing a bicycle that is not only foot-powered but is also hand-powered, as far as the applicant is aware, none of such proposals have been successful or have come into general use. It appears that a significant problem with prior proposals for providing a hand-powered drive system for a bicycle is that it is difficult to transmit power from the region of the bicycle where the hands are normally located and where they are used to steer the bicycle to the drive wheel of the bicycle. These problems arise in part from the fact that the rider's hands must at all times be available for steering the bicycle while they are providing the power to the drive wheel.
Early U.S. Pat. No. 632,797 issued Sept. 12, 1899, to G. Van Horn describes a bicycle with a handle-bar constructed to form a crank-shaft used to provide drive power to the rear wheel of the bicycle. The rotatable handle-bar turns a sprocket wheel which turns an auxiliary driven sprocket located adjacent to the usual sprocket that is turned by the foot pedals. The two sprockets are connected by means of a continuous chain of considerable length. An obvious difficulty with this proposal is that the continuous chain must be twisted when the front wheel is turned in order to steer the bicycle.
Another hand powered drive is described in early U.S. Pat. No. 582,315 issued May 11, 1897 to M. Quinn. A crank handle-bar is journaled in a T-head mounted on the steering-spindle. An upper sprocket is mounted at the front of the frame and is connected by a continuous chain belt to a small sprocket-wheel mounted adjacent to the usual sprocket that is turned by the foot pedals. There is an upright cup within the T-head that is connected with a crank shaft on the head. A pitman-rod is journaled at one end on the crank of the handle bar and this is provided to rotate the upper sprocket-wheel by hand power.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a velocipede with a steerable front wheel that can be powered by the use of the rider's hands and arms and that is relatively easy to operate.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a reliable mechanism for permitting a bicycle to be powered either by the user's legs or by the user's arms and hands or by both means. Moreover, the present arrangement does not interfere with the user's abilities to steer the bicycle in a relatively normal fashion at all times.